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The Turtle is the layout most people picture when they think of Mahjong Solitaire. A wide base, a shell that rises in square steps to a single tile on top, and three tiles sticking out at the sides like a head and tail.
Those side tiles are what make it different. They sit half a row off the others and they block the end of the two middle rows, so the longest rows on the board can't open until they're gone.
144 tiles over 5 layers, 15 tiles wide and 8 rows high. These percentages show how often a bot choosing pairs at random won, across 2,000 games at each level:
A thinking player will do far better than a random one. See how we measured this.
144 tiles · 4 layers
A stepped pyramid, and the main board on this site.
136 tiles · 4 layers
Four corner towers, four tiles high, around a walled courtyard.
144 tiles · 4 layers
Two big towers joined by a narrow two-row span.
144 tiles · 3 layers
Tapered wings either side of a tall, narrow body.
144 tiles · 3 layers
Four arms meeting at a raised center block.
72 tiles · 3 layers
Half the tiles of a full board. Quick games with larger tiles on phones.
96 tiles · 3 layers
A flat bed with three raised mounds. A shorter game at 96 tiles.
144 tiles · 3 layers
Three broad steps climbing to one side. Few free tiles at the start.
136 tiles · 4 layers
Tapered rows forming a diamond. The most forgiving full-size board.
The rules, from your first pair to clearing the board.
How traps work, and how to avoid getting stuck.
Every tile, what it means and what it matches.
Every board compared by size, shape and difficulty.
Our data from 80,000 simulated games.
One new board a day, the same for everyone.
The stacked shape looks like a turtle seen from above: a domed shell in the middle with a head and tail at the sides. Most computer versions of the game have used this arrangement since the 1980s.
This board uses the traditional 144 tiles across five layers, with a single tile at the very top.
It's a middle-of-the-road board. In our simulations it sits close to Pyramid and Butterfly at each difficulty, and it's much harder at Hard and Expert than at Medium.